


Two days, two nights

by thecountessolivia



Category: London Spy
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, Fluff, M/M, Missing Scenes, Regret, Romance, outrageous fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6050256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fluffy, fix-it scenes from Danny and Alex's first eight months together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The picture

The photo slips from the back pages of the book he's thumbing through. Danny catches it, stares in disbelief, then slides down against the sofa with a groan of deep delight.

"Oh. My God."

Alex emerges from the kitchen holding a tea towel, eyes wide with alarm and the usual excess of worry.  
"Danny. Are you OK?"  
"More than OK."

Danny waves his new-found treasure about, biting his lip, beaming with triumph.  
"It's Alex the school boy."  
"Oh no. No. Where did you find that?"

Alex casts the towel aside and takes wide, determined strides across the room, fingers snapping after the photograph.  
"I'd like that, please."  
  
Danny squirms against the cushions to curl himself into a protective ball, clutching his find.  
"You're not having it. I'm keeping it. I'm going to put it under my pillow. I'm going to..."  
He's giggling, feet kicking up and scrambling over Alex's hips and up to his chest, straining to hold him at leg's length.  
"Danny..."  
Alex's hands are closing about his ankles and moving them aside with ease.  
"...I'm going to wank to it!"  
"Danny!"  
"Look at your pretty mouth. Look at how skinny you were! Almost as skinny as me. How old were you?"  
"Seventeen and a half."  
"Bloody hell. What was this for then?"  
"I'd won a maths prize. They took it for the University paper. It was awful. I look awful. I don't know why I have it."  
"Well, I have to say, your suits are nicer now."

Danny sighs at the picture.  
"I would have had the worst crush on you. I'd have stalked you. Snuck love poems into your books."  
"You'd never have found me. I hid in the library."

They settle down beside each other and Danny surrenders his treasure.  
"You probably won't believe me, but so did I. When I was that age."  
Alex is scanning the blurry photograph, serious and sad.  
"I believe you."  
  
Danny smiles, takes the picture, kisses it, holds it beside Alex's face, comparing.  
"Same Alex."  
"Mmm. Happier now."  
  
Alex's hand slips into his and Danny nestles close, cheek against his shoulder, feet drawn up on the sofa. A minute drifts by before Alex's eyes lift from the snapshot. He hesitates, then asks the question.   
"And if we _had_ met back then?"

Danny swallows as his throat tightens with something like regret.  
  
Nearly ten years.  
  
What if...?  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "school boy photo" is a screengrab from a very terrible early film of Ed's. Thank you to whoever took it and submitted it anonymously to [Aoidos' Tumblr](http://theaoidos.tumblr.com/) \- you inspired this little drabble.


	2. Imagine a place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wiggles under the sheets, pressed against Alex’s side. Hands clasped in expectation, he’s already run the gamut of wished-for answers about their first meeting. He wants one to cascade onto him like a rain of flowers.

“...Like a complete car crash. And then, out of nowhere, you. Lovely you. Did you think about me? After you stopped to help me? After you touched me?”

Danny laces the last question with a beaming smile, feeling aglow with hope.

He wiggles under the sheets, pressing closer against Alex’s side. Hands clasped in expectation, he’s already run the gamut of wished-for answers about their first meeting. He wants one to cascade onto him like a rain of flowers. Guiltily he craves the highest prize of them all: he wants to hear he was wank fodder. Alex, in the shower after his run, gorgeous, hard and panting with the memory of his tweaker trash rescue.

Moments pass before the answer lands flatly on Danny’s chest with the full, familiar weight of Alex’s directness:  
“No.”

Silence. There’s always silence after Danny’s romantic moon shots splinter on take off. Danny’s heart burns with fatalism but this time he’ll bide the hurt and wait.

Finally, haltingly:  
“No. But. It was different next time. After.. when we had breakfast.”

Six months now since that day and Danny is beginning to understand. Stilling his splintered heart with reassurances, he thinks: wait. Let him work this out. He lies in the half light, fixed on Alex’s profile. Hand sliding onto Alex’s hands, crossed funereally over his chest, Danny caresses, as if gently coaxing out of the narrative he knows is assembling itself earnestly in Alex’s mind.

Alex navigates slowly, with stories.

Minutes pass before his head turns on the pillow, wide eyes locking to Danny’s.

“Imagine a place. Just a place. Not a home. Barely even shelter. Nothing there is your own, nothing worth looking at. This is the place you have to come back to. Every night. You re-arrange it, you fill it with music. Still, it doesn’t comfort you. It only stares back at you. It exists only to remind you that you’re there by yourself. Imagine one day you have breakfast. You shake hands. And you come back to that place. And from that moment... all you see are the memories of where a certain person had stood. What they had touched and which room they'd smiled in. And how they looked at you. You still smell their soap and their cigarettes. And you begin to think you’ll never feel lonely again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As requested by some of you, a repost of a deleted drabble from December.


	3. Joe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In time, his voyeurism grows beyond lust. Even as Danny loiters about the bathroom under the weakest of pretence - chatting, tidying - Alex's hand never slips. Danny wonders if using the blade is a test of self-control, a way for Alex to calibrate himself for the day ahead. If he can pass through unharmed...

By now Danny must have witnessed this ritual a dozen times. He looks for excuses to see it.

The hollowed wooden hemisphere, cupped and lifted in Alex's hand. Fingers cupped over the rounded brush handle, the graceful wrist making swirls in the sandalwood soap. First dabbling then smoothing the lather over the faint speckle of hair, lining the tilted throat, the curve of jawline and the cheek with great practice. Stopping just below the slope of high cheekbones. Naked back straight, eyes firm in the mirror. Then the straight razor.

So grown up.

  
The eccentric implements of Alex's shaving ritual have found sanctuary on a bathroom shelf in Danny's flat. Kept apart from the plastic chaos of his and his housemates' toiletries, they are immaculate and outrageously out of place. Like the collection of obscure teas stashed in the kitchen and the ordinance survey maps slowly filling up a hallway drawer, they are small islands of Alex. Danny fusses over the islands, protects them. Already baffled by the near-constant presence of the suited, taciturn creature that keeps himself always within Danny's reach, Sara and Pavel now take the piss:

"Danny, you're hopeless."

Danny had never known anyone who used a straight razor. The first sight of a shirtless, showered Alex solemnly putting the blade to his sculpted face nearly makes Danny the Deviant come apart. At times he can barely wait for the last bit of soapy stubble to be sheared before he drags the smiling, surrendered Alex back to the bedroom.

In time, his voyeurism grows beyond lust. Even as Danny loiters about the bathroom under the weakest of pretence - chatting, tidying - Alex's hand never slips. Fascinated, Danny wonders if using the blade is a test of self-control, a way for Alex to calibrate himself for the day ahead. If he can pass through unharmed...

This morning Danny has perched himself on the edge of the bath. He chatters about their evening plans, sips his tea, watching all the while as Alex smooths the lather with deft strokes of the brush. Danny finds his heart is twisting with protective tenderness - it always does when he remembers they're three years apart. The younger Alex: taller, stronger and self-anointed with all the refined trappings of manhood. Danny can’t help but see resignation in Alex's faultless adulthood. As if he couldn't think to be anything else.

Danny takes the leap.  
"Love, I think I'd like to do that for you today."

Alex turns from the mirror. His erect stance slackens slightly, corners of lips upturned. He's finished lathering and is rinsing the badger hair brush.  
"Danny... this takes some practice."

"I won't insist. But I have watched you so many times now. How about I try doing a small patch? The easiest bit. A trial run. Just your cheek."

Alex looks to him with a mix of tenderness and hesitation. In time, he gives a characteristic small nod.

"All right. But it's best if I sit."

Smiling, Danny leads him to settle on the edge of the bath, standing steady between Alex's bare thighs. A small wet towel draped over Alex's shoulder to wipe the blade on.

"Work your way down. Just little movements. Angle it.. See? Like this"

Danny nods. The scent of the lather and Alex's warm closeness are almost too much but taking up the razor he feels fearless. Alex's head tilts. His eyes fall closed.

The first small strokes scrape along Alex's left cheek and Danny beams at his own skill. The handle is heavy and sits well in his hand. As he works, his thoughts circle down.

"I was wondering if you'll ever tell me about 'Joe'"

The slightest flinch of Alex's neck and Danny's hand shoots back, barely keeping the blade from slicing. Alex's large eyes have fluttered open and are peering past him. He swallows.

Danny's thoughts scramble: "Fuck. Fuck."

He clarifies, knowing better: "Sorry. You remember. The fake name you gave me when we met. The second time."

Alex is still, retreating inward. I'm losing him, Danny thinks. Steadying his hand, he lets the steel flick over Alex's throat. So far so faultless. Having considered, he opts for one of his famous divinations.

"You knew a Joe, didn't you?"

Alex blinks, affirming.  
"Mmm. My dissertation advisor. An older student. I was eighteen."

"What was he like?"

"Popular. No, not that. He was... well-loved." "And you loved him too?"

Silence. Alex's blue eyes fix on a spot on the bathroom ceiling. Knowing no answer will follow, Danny chooses patience. His thumb pressing above the blade, pulling taut the curve of Alex's jaw, he glides in quick strokes. He wants to kiss the boyish skin he uncovers.

Pausing, he tries again.  
"Did he love you back?"  
"No. He oversaw my work - that was it. He did like to tease me." "Because you were shy?"  
"Because I was shy. And odd."

The tender twisting again. Danny is quiet, moving to the right cheek. He works with the rhythm of Alex's breath until Alex is ready to speak again.

"He'd laugh. And tell stories about his conquests. With other people. I think perhaps he barely knew I was there."

Sadness descends on Danny: it dawns on him he's arrived upon the first and last defeat of Alex's heart. How had he, himself, let a parade of abusive drunks and compulsive liars trample through his life and still emerge with hope in tact?

"Alex... did you ever tell him?"

Alex shakes his head. "He left. Moved abroad before I'd finished my thesis. He didn't bother to keep in touch."

Danny sighs, eyes tenderly on Alex. His free hand roams through his hair, strokes the back of his neck. A few flecks of soap remaining. "Look. Only a bit more to do."

The last cautious glide of the razor over Alex's chin and then it's finished, but for one question. "Alex... have you ever wondered why you used his name?"

Alex's gaze drifts down, hands clasped tightly in his lap. The heart-twist again as Danny thinks: he's not touched his face. He's not checked for blood.

"Perhaps because... he was my only point of reference. When you took a chance and found me, you did what I never could have done, never could have said back then. I thought you were..."

He peers up. The face Danny beholds seems impossibly young. "I thought you were fearless."

Frowning, Danny looks to the razor. He turns the handle in his hands and thinks it a wielded weapon. Breaking from Alex, he steps back, folds the blade into its sheath. Carefully he sets it down, arranging it with the soap and brush, neatly on the shelf as Alex would like. He lets the cold tap run over this hands, chilling them to near numbness.

Returning, he finds Alex's arms reaching for him, fingers quick to lace at the small of Danny's back. Stay. Please stay.

Danny brings both palms to Alex's smooth cheeks, cold fingertips dancing over fine high cheekbones, soothing the skin with his touch. He brings his lips to Alex's, parts them, lingers and lingers in a kiss.

He breaks it only to whisper "Not even the tiniest nick."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another repost of a deleted fic.


	4. New Notation

To illustrate, Alex's hands lift and tilt, fingers forming a dome. Danny watches as they perform their architectural dance, straining to concentrate on Alex's whispered explanations of the hall's acoustics.

The quickly quaffed glass of pre-concert wine is spreading its warmth through his belly. Danny feels fidgety, happy, distracted and out of place. His attention drifts to the grown-up faces of the arriving audience and he wonders if those whose eyes he meets recognise him for the suited fraud he is.

He glances down at his knee brushing against Alex's and tries not to get turned on. He obsesses again over why Alex chose today, of all days: an unremarkable Thursday evening. He longs to scratch the infuriating itch along his collarbone, just beneath where Alex's hands had earlier shaped the immaculate knot of his tie.

The same hands now join in the polite applause that begins to fill the hall. Danny turns from Alex, towards the stage, and sees the four musician take a bow beside their instruments. He's agape at their youth and their seriousness - so like Alex.

The strings begin in a drawn-out, solemn unison but soon split to dance and meander about each other. A single violin pitches above the others to form a melody and its melancholy sweetness cuts Danny through with a deep ache, as if the bow were sawing and swaying directly over his heart. He feels his face crumple with feeling and when he dares to glance at Alex he meets the same expression as his own, fixed not on the stage but on him.

\--------  
  
The music swells, dives, dips, weeps. Danny swallows back tears and wants to hold Alex's hand. Over six months. Over six months of Alex side-stepping all the clichés Danny had always thought he was desperate for. Six months of Alex forging from inexperience a new language that Danny is only now beginning to grasp.

Their one, three, six month anniversaries drift by unacknowledged. No dirty or love-sick texts appear on Danny's phone. No expensive gifts his trashier mates tell him he should expect.

Meanwhile, Alex ties his ties. Alex stops him in mid-stride and crouches down on the pavement to redo the laces in his canvas trainers. Alex crooks his finger and lets its knuckle play absent-mindedly with Danny's earlobe. Alex carries spare socks and a spare parka on their country walks. Danny finds the hole in the sleeve of his coat mysteriously mended and the broken lamp beside his bed working again.

With a knitted brow, Alex listens silently as Danny whines about not being having been texted the day before. The following week, daily at the same time, Danny's phone buzzes on the overground home from work. Each day a new picture. A long shadow cast by iron railings. A refraction of imperfect glass. An obscure, amusing blue plaque. A murmuration of starlings above Southwark cathedral.

Alex pulls him in by the hips when they dress in the morning, places a single kiss on the small of Danny's back then lets him go. Alex pauses when they fuck and, holding deep and perfectly still inside him, reaches down to move trembling fingertips over Danny's face, stricken as if he's seeing him for the first time or the last.

\--------

The concert crowd pours out into the rain, streaming towards Bond Street tube. They huddle in the corner, out of the way, and button up each others' coats beneath the frosted glass awning of the hall.  
  
"So at some point you're going to tell me, right? What we're celebrating?"  
  
"Celebrating?"  
  
"I've been wracking my brain - it's not an anniversary..."  
  
Alex's lips part in response. He looks worried, mouths for words. Danny clasps his hand, soothing, smoothing over his questioning.   
  
"It's just... this seemed so special. It is so special."

"Danny... I'm sorry. I just thought you'd like the music."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet expands on the flashback scene of Alex tying Danny's tie.
> 
> Danny and Alex attend a performance of Beethoven's Late String Quartets at [Wigmore Hall](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Wigmore+Hall/@51.5165637,-0.1503951,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x48761ad36b44d3f9:0xa566a10494b28a35)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of four LS drabbles, two old, two new. Enjoy.


End file.
